I am an international student looking for safety schools that offer significant (>80%) financial aid to international students. Any suggestions?
There aren’t any. If there were, they would suddenly get a gazillion apps from int’ls and then they would become reaches.
There might be some schools that would give you free tuition for your stats, but you’d have to pay the $20k per year for room, board, books, fees, int’l travel, health insurance and personal expenses.
@mom2collegekids brought up a good point about full tuition scholarships that some schools offer. OP, what are your stats? We might be able to help you find some schools that offer enough money if you provide them.
You can also check out the schools and their scholarships through the following links. Many of the scholarships require a specific GPA, and I don’t know how your country’s or region’s grading system would mesh with the GPA system, so you might want to contact specific colleges you are interested in to find out how your grade would be converted to GPA, and if you would be eligible for scholarships. Additionally, I don’t know if these scholarships are available to international students or not (I don’t have any information to the contrary, but who knows) - another reason to contact schools you are interested in.
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/
Hard to tell without your stats, but there are quite a few schools that offer automatic full tuition/ride scholarships based on GPA and test scores alone, as the above poster has mentioned.
There are no schools in the US, which award generous money to international students, that are safety schools. Why would there be?
I see from your other thread that you are an accomplished pianist. If you intend to seriously study piano, then take a look at the University of Rochester. It has the Eastman School of Music.
Rochester is well regarded and is definitely NOT a safety school, but it does give a great deal of merit aid. It’s a good option for scholar-musicians.
“80%” is not an amount - 80% of 35k? Of 60k? Of 70k? =>what’s your parents ’ budget?
Depending on your stats and your budget, these schools have a preference for musicians : St Olaf, Lawrence, Gustavus Adolphus, Concordia Moorhead, Luther.
The only college that’d be a safety would be a college with automatic scholarships for your stats where the automatic scholarship makes the total costs within budget.
I don’t mean to rant at you, OP, but this question has been asked a thousand times on CC. Do people overseas think the streets in the US are paved with gold? We can’t send all of our own deserving kids to college; what makes people think that there are just pots of money sitting around for international students? Especially at safety schools?
I realize I might not have been clear enough when asking the question. I certainly do not expect random US colleges to offer 90% acceptance rate and need based financial aid to international students. I am a relatively high achieving student (based on grades and standardized exams), and I’m hoping for a merit based scholarship.
I go to an american school, so my gpa will definitely be acknowledged in the admissions process. We use a 12 point version, but my cgpa translates to around 3.9 unweighted. My old SAT score is 2100, but the redesigned pSAT placed me in the top 1% so I am planing to take the redesigned SAT as well. I am also an AP student and have so far taken 5 AP exams (scores: four 5s and one 3), and I plan to take 4 more AP subjects next year. I am hoping to study something in the area of biology/psychology, but as it is a safety school, I’m not in a position to be picky about a major.
Many thanks to everyone who replied, you’ve been more than helpful.
If the OP wants to study music then Rochester and other universities open up as merit and aid opportunities.
If the OP doesn’t want to study Music, Eastman is off the table and then Rochester wouldn’t really care about the OPs music talent…
If you think your PSAT score will qualify for NMSF then this list as well http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/
Confirm anything you find on this or the previously listed yolasite pages with the individual schools, as the pages havent been updated lately.
NMF is not available to international students.
An int’l student will have costs ABOVE the “family contribution”. In addition to what the school may calculate, you will have about $5k in additional expenses to cover health insurance AND int’l travel costs.
How much will your parents spend each year?
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I'm hoping for a merit based scholarship.
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Merit based scholarships for int’ls will usually fall under two categories…
Full tuition scholarships, which means your family would have to pay about $20k per year for the remaining costs
Tuition, room, board, books scholarships, which would likely be at a few directional schools that you’ve never heard of…and your family would likely have to pay about $10k per year for personal expenses, int’l travel, and health insurance.
If you have high stats, check out UMiami, Northeastern and URichmond.
At last check Howard University allows internationals to apply for their merit scholarships, and they aren’t that hard to qualify for.
^ Howard’s scholarships are now competitive, not automatic, and students need a 32 or 1400. So, pretty hard to qualify for if you’re aiming the 98% students…